Common Tools
Pencil & Marker - although computers are used for finalization, the most basic tools are still useful for sketch the idea and the creative process Adobe Photoshop - '''It is a raster graph editing software that was published by the American company, Adobe. It has been widely used in the publishing, designing and photo editing area. The newest version has improved the basic functions such as fixing images and lights, so that it is easier to erase the dirt and useless parts and also keep the shadows and patterns at the same time. The new functions helps users design more easily and improve the quality of images and support them to work more efficiently, because of the copyright, Photoshop CS started to use an activate technique like Windows XP, the users have to activate the program online in order to use it. '''Adobe Illustrator - '''AI is a professional graphics editor. It was released in 1987, and now it becomes the most common vector graphics editor for publishing and multimedia work (ex: animation). AI is usable for either small design cases or more complicated projects. It might not be a good choice for decorative graphics, but it is suitable for ensuring the precise standard such as drawing the blueprints. ' ' ' '''Adobe InDesign - '''It is a desktop publishing application program especially for page layout. It was released in 1999 by Adobe, and it was being used to create works like posters, flyers, brochures, magazines, newspapers and books. It supports various file formats like EPUB, SWF, and XML to create e-books, contents and other digital publications.' ' ' ' '''PageMaker - '''This is a similar desktop publishing application like Adobe InDesign. It was originally released by Aldus in 1985, and got acquired by Adobe in 1994. PageMaker provided a complete tool for creating professional and high quality publications. It has similar interface as other Adobe productions, so people can use it easier.' ' '''CorelDRAW - '''CorelDRAW is a graphic designing software that combines vector graphics editor, page layout, and text editor all in one graphic application. It is mainly used for advertisement making and books publishing, which is similar to Illustrator and Freehand. The newest version CorelDRAW Graphics Suite enhanced tool functions to reduce some steps and save time. '''Freehand - '''Freehand is the software that suits any level of users who need to do vector graphics design. It provides every tool that you need for designing, making, and publishing, and all these operations can be handled in one window. The users imagination is directing the whole design, which is the biggest advantage of Freehand. It is also wisely used in page layout, multimedia and website making area.' ' '''Fireworks - '''This is a bitmap and vector graphics editor that especially made for web designers. It was originally developed by Micromedia xRes, and Adobe acquired it in 2005. It can quickly create website prototypes and application interfaces because it has an advanced database. It also as other features such as slices and adding hotspot.' ' ' ' '''Dreamweaver - '''This is a “proprietary web development tool” that made for web designers. It provides a visual WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get) design editor and a code editor that can assist designers to see the overall view of the website directly. ' ' '''QuarkXPress - '''QuarkXPress is the most popular page layouts editor. Quark, Inc. first published it in 1987, and now it allows 36 different languages for the designers all over the world. The most significant feature is that it can create and edit really complex and accurate page layouts in a WYSIWYG environment.' '''